Programming — the new salt mine

It seems that every mention of “teaching programming” tries to romanticize the notion of writing code when in fact most code that is written is the epitome of dull, of mundane, of rote. Think of all the accounting code, the ERP code, the CRM code, business code of every type — all of it mind-numbingly painful to write. Only a fraction of programming is sexy, fun or entertaining. The balance of code represents the rudimentary operations of a vast, complex but ultimately boring world. Programming is the new salt mine.